Spending watchdog dined out in Michelin-starred restaurants on taxpayer credit cards
Thousands of pounds has been blown at Michelin-starred restaurants by the government's spending watchdog, it has been revealed.
They spent in excess of £20,000 of taxpayers' money on credit cards in the last two years on fine meals and luxury products.
Officials also bought cinema tickets, doughnuts, luxury chocolates from Thorntons and goods from HMV - at a cost of £1,300 to the taxpayer.
Last night the body was blasted by MPs - who said the department that strives for efficiency and effectiveness should represent the 'gold standard'.
Executives spent over £600 at the fashionable L'Escargot in Soho where Rolling Stone Mick Jagger and Tony Blair have dined and Coq d'Argent close to the Bank of England.
And a brasserie owned by celebrity chef Raymond Blanc was extremely popular with civil servants who spent hundreds of pounds on fine meals.
In two years the Audit Commission has blown £11,390 on dining out on taxpayer-funded credit cards, the Daily Telegraph revealed.
The department have previously been criticised for spending £53,000 on 224 luxury office chairs - including four four ‘eye-catching’ Omni swivel chairs, each costing £854.
Grant Shapps, the Local Government Minister, accused the spending watchdog of frittering away public money.
'The body was treating the government procurement card as its flexible friend, spending taxpayers' cash as if it had just won the lottery,' he told the Daily Telegraph.
Slammed: Grant Shapps accused Audit Commission of spending taxpayers' money 'like they had won the lottery'
'What is so disturbing is that their expenses read like a shopping list for some lavish party.
'It seems the Audit Commission was not applying checks and balances on itself that it preached to councils.'
The department also spent more than £1,000 on gym equipment and £200 at high street retailers Next, an answer to a parliamentary question by Tory Eric Ollerenshaw has found.
Across all of the government departments more than £1billion a year is spent on credit cards. There are around 140,000 of them in circulation.
In some departments the cards are used for almost all spending below £5,000.
It is thought to be the first time that a breakdown of expenditure has been provided.
It was unclear who within the government body had access to the cards. The Coalition are planning to axe the Audit Commission in 2012.
A spokesman said: 'In common with many public bodies the Audit Commission uses Government Procurement Cards for low value transactions or where a purchase order is impractical.
'Procurement cards are recognised as the most cost-effective way of dealing with such transactions and often result in lower prices.
'Between April 2008 and March 2010 we processed 8,818 transactions at an average cost of £125. All purchases were for legitimate business purposes.
'Payments made by these procurement cards are routinely checked to ensure the cards are being used correctly.'
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